Two questions about today.....

**venus89** · 11-06-2008, 01:31 PM

1. My 15 month old mindee has great physical control and is quite mature for age. We've just spent20 minutes in wendy house with her taking off an putting on the lid of a biro, and drawing on a piece of paper. She must have put the lid on literally hundreds of times during this. I see this as a great experience for her and want to put it in my observations BUT shoudl I be letting a (exceptionally closely supervised) 15 month old play with a biro?

2. In my EYFS course the instructor said they'll expect about 50% child initiated activitie and about 50% adult initiated in future. Today I had my mindee from 8.55, where mum passes her over in school playground. We came home, she slept, we went to baby bounce and rhyme then read some library books, quick trip to the park then home at 11.30. Floor play till 12 then lunch. Drawing. 30 min nap. Then outside till just now - water play and duplo out there as 2 activities, but also lot of her bumbling around doing what she chooses (eg the pen thing I mentioned above). Now I reckon bounce and rhyme is adult intitiated, and I certainly initiated the duplo play. The floor play was about 50/50 but that was only 1/2 hour of our day. I did do footprints for the fathers day card but sneakily while she was eating!

So my question is - am I doing enough? I've always favoured letting them lead the way most of the time at that kind of age....

**Blaze** · 11-06-2008, 01:37 PM

Sounds like you are doing fine!

Re the biro...she showed interest & was closely supervised, so don't see a problem...especially as they are advising us to let them play with real nails, hammers, old irons etc now...puts the biro into perspective!

**venus89** · 11-06-2008, 01:38 PM

Originally Posted by Blaze

Re the biro...she showed interest & was closely supervised, so don't see a problem...especially as they are advising us to let them play with real nails, hammers, old irons etc now...puts the biro into perspective!

That's a good point! Thankyou x

**deeb66** · 11-06-2008, 01:42 PM

I agree with Blaze

I think you are doing more than enough.

You are trying to encourage the child and initiate stimulating activites but allow her to lead off into another direction if she wants.

As for the biro thing....I think that is perfectly fine.....as you say she is supervised so should have no problems.

**sarah707** · 11-06-2008, 02:33 PM

Sounds like the 2 of you have had a wonderful day!

All the activities sound great to me... you cannot prescribe what a little one will enjoy and all the expensive toys in the world will not compensate for normal, supervised experiences with things like biro lids and boxes.

**kindredspirits** · 11-06-2008, 02:57 PM

hiya,
i think it depends on the child - my 16 month old son rarely likes to play with us, he would rather wonder about on her own, touching things he 'shouldn't' - today he spent about an hour putting milk cartons in the fridge and back out again - while i worried about my electric bill steadily rising!

he also loves to take the lids off stuff which i let him do as long as he's supervised. sounds like you're doing it all right.
anna x

**miffy** · 11-06-2008, 03:13 PM

I agree with everyone else - sounds like you had a lovely day and can't see any problem with a biro so closely supervised.

miffy xx

**Donkey** · 11-06-2008, 04:47 PM

Can I come round to play?

Sounds like a great day

**katickles** · 11-06-2008, 04:55 PM

Sounds to me like a fab day!!!

My dd loves & I mean loves playing wth my cosmetic bottles in my bedroom. She will sit & play again taking off the lid & putting it back on for as long as i'd let her. She is 15 months now.

I would never let her do it unsupervised but i don't see a problem with her doing it when supervised.

**venus89** · 11-06-2008, 05:08 PM

Thank you all so much! It's good to hear I'm doing ok x And yes, we had a great day, thank you. This little girl is wonderful - her three loves are animals, outdoors and drawing: she's so easy to be with!

Hope you all had a lovely day too x

**flora** · 11-06-2008, 07:53 PM

Originally Posted by venus89

Thank you all so much! It's good to hear I'm doing ok x And yes, we had a great day, thank you. This little girl is wonderful - her three loves are animals, outdoors and drawing: she's so easy to be with!

Hope you all had a lovely day too x

Sound just like my dd. I open the back door around 7 am and she's in and out all morning till nap time. At the momet she has taking to running around stark naked so she is as happy as a pig in the proverbial.

We'd love to come and play too. Sounds like Lo is lucky to have you